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This show is made for B2B marketers who are tired of the same old advice. Ugi Djuric, CEO of ContentMonk and B2B Vault, sits down with some of the best minds in B2B to talk about what’s really working, what’s broken, and what nobody tells you about growing a company. This is the show where people share their deepest insights and secret knowledge they wouldn't otherwise share on LinkedIn.
Melissa Rosenthal (00:00)
This is super controversial, but I think a lot of companies don't even really need to exist at this point,
The worst thing that you could do is try to stick to a playbook that had previously worked years ago or is not congruent with the way that technology and other things in market are evolving.
There's a way to stand out if you're doing something super unique. This is not a playbook for every company. Can every company afford to do it? No. Should every company do this? No. Should most companies not exist? Probably. Building relationships, building connections, building value through other people is infinitely scalable. The role of the CMO, I don't know if it will exist.
The first question that I have for you, right? I think we both agree that we can right now see the trend where because of artificial intelligence, products are becoming a commodity. Software is becoming a commodity, right? Content as well is becoming a commodity right now. I personally pretty much don't find anything useful on LinkedIn anymore, right? Because everyone is writing and everyone is like recycling the same content all over again and all over again, right? And everyone is so-called an expert, right? So...
Based on your experience, how B2B companies can stand out right now?
Melissa Rosenthal (01:59)
Yeah, that's a great question. would know there's something interesting that I'm like, I'm coming across and I would say, you know, my, my perspective now is like, it changes because when I was at ClickUp and when I was at Cheddar and like all the companies I was at, like they were also very different points in time. And I think like the, the timing has a lot to do with like, how do you go to market and how you present yourself and like what you do. I think the worst thing that you could do is try to stick to a playbook that had previously worked years ago or is not.
congruent with the way that technology and other things in market are evolving. And what I was thinking about yesterday, I was like, you know, everyone is kind of, I think, frantically running around trying to get the things that used to work to still work. And I was just thinking about it and it felt a little bit like, did that playbook ever really work? Or was it just a sign of an inflated market in which everyone had money to buy software?
and that all sellers were hitting quota and it was, everyone had free cash to deploy into a million different things and SEO wasn't saturated. So there were a million different ways to optimize for content and not everyone ever founder was doing thought leadership and AI obviously wasn't a thing. And I'm like, looking back and people are just trying to still optimize the same channels and that doesn't make any sense. Like we're not in that time period anymore.
This is super controversial, but I think a lot of companies don't even really need to exist at this point, right? Like, so I would say there's a way to stand out if you're doing something super unique. And I think you could take a, have a unique voice and you can be very out there and you can do things that other people aren't doing and take chances and bets and risks and, and, and try to optimize that way and be loud. ⁓ but I would say that like, there's a lot of companies that like quite honestly, you're just kind of going to fall to the wayside and collapse.
being really honest. ⁓ But I think if you have a great product and you are differentiated, ⁓ your moat can definitely be figuring out the next wave of traffic and trying to optimize for getting in LLMs. mean, again, like some of the things that you can do is, are super sensitive to, I would say the time period. Like you don't know what's going to happen next, right? We don't know what Google, what update Google is going to make next. So I think it's if you're investing things that are longer term and
feel like they can bring value over time, that's what I would invest in, right? It is building brand. It is building a ⁓ credible executive bench of thought leaders. I do believe in that. I believe it's building differentiated point of view. I do believe it's different types of marketing and stand out creative. And I think it's all of these things and a robust thought leadership program and other things. ⁓
I'm pretty excited about what we're building too. But I think it's all these things working together that can allow you to stand out. Now, can every company afford to do it? No. Can every company, should every company do this? No. Should most companies not exist? Probably. So I think like I'm a little, I would say like, not pessimistic, but I think it's, it, is not a playbook for every company. This is a playbook for certain companies, but it will work if you, if you have the right mix.
Speaker 2 (05:13)
Let's say for example, that we have a really cool SaaS product, right? That just raised 10, 15, $20 million in seed. And ⁓ their product is actually like really good, hypothetically. So it's not just some kind of AI wrapper or something, but it's like something very, let's say revolutionary or very helpful for a specific audience and specific niche.
But right now, at the moment, the only thing that they have is the product, right? And some money in the funds, right? What, according to you, would be their best approach to building that brand? How to get there from zero? If you get what I'm trying to say.
Melissa Rosenthal (06:02)
Yeah, I mean, it's tough right now. I would say like start doing things that no one else is doing, right? Like optimizing for the things away from what everyone else is doing. First of all, think like relationships at that stage, like building relationships, building connections, building value through other people is infinitely scalable and extremely valuable and you'll never lose that value. And I think that that is like a very key thing. We're doing something really interesting that I deeply believe in. think.
What we're doing is a part of that. ⁓ But I definitely think relationships is just like, have to optimize for that today. Like that is your number one in to everything that you want. The other piece is having a point of view, a differentiated point of view and doing founder led growth on LinkedIn, creating a real perspective that is echoed throughout your executive team where they are writing daily. You have to do that. That's like a non-negotiable. I think even trying to convince an executive to do to doing that today is just like.
Why would you not put your opinion out there? You have nothing else really. ⁓ Events I think are super valuable. It's where people are. ⁓ There's no way you can exist without like an event strategy today. And everything else I would put on hold. I would say you try those three things. You build community. You build relationships. You build robust thought leadership and content programs that are not the same things that you were doing for the last 10 years. ⁓
and events and you try to optimize that way. ⁓ I think that's a start. And then at least you have a really good understanding of like your perspective, where things are working, what's resonating, what connections are you making, where, know, like, I think you always try to optimize for the places that can give you more feedback and that can consistently allow you to ⁓ evolve and iterate based on what you're seeing in market. And I think that's an amazing strategy. And I think you can do that for, you know,
relatively low budget, at least to start.
Speaker 2 (07:59)
So would you say that one of the best approaches would be to basically have a unique point of view, unique angle perspective on the things in the industry, right? Create content around that, different forms of content, of course, and amplify that through relationships that you get from other peers in the industry. Is that what you're basically saying? On a very high level.
Melissa Rosenthal (08:20)
I mean, yeah
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:26)
Okay. I want to talk about something that's very close to you, right? So you said many times that companies should own the narrative, right? That they should own their narrative and that they should become the first new source in the industry, which is basically what you're doing for your clients. Right? So tell me how can companies actually, actually do that? What is it that you're doing for the companies that allows them to own the narrative in their space?
Melissa Rosenthal (08:54)
Yeah, so my background before B2B SaaS was in digital media and I was very early at a company called Buzzfeed and then I went to help start a company called Cheddar. And really what we were doing at those companies was we were building media companies to sell advertising. Media companies and authority in that space was a conduit to sell companies advertising. And there was no reason why companies couldn't take that on themselves and build their own media channels, their own owned
media, their own point of view, perspective, credibility. ⁓ And when I was at ClickUp, our addressable market was so big, it was really tough to have, even with a really healthy marketing budget, to have the conversations that we needed to have with every possible ICP at scale. It's just, it's like an impossible task, no matter how big your team is. Teams are smaller today now, budgets are smaller, resources are constrained. So what we do is we effectively build our customers' newsrooms.
and we allow them to become the trade publication of their industry. We publish news that matters to them, news that matters to their ICPs, news that matters to subject matter experts and influencers within their space. And we create this kind of network of triangulation around the intersection of what matters to them and what matters to their customers. And we allow them to amplify their own voice through the voices of their potential customers and through the voices of subject matter experts and influencers. So it's creating a very large network effect.
Through SEO through linkedin shares through ⁓ through just personal branding where we're able to create this effectively this owned media. ⁓ Trade publication that really amplifies them allows them to really make deep connections and also gives them great credibility and authority in their own space.
Speaker 2 (10:39)
Can you, if you can, of course, if it's not something ⁓ secret, can you give me like ⁓ a little bit better look in the backend process of how you're doing that, how you're.
Melissa Rosenthal (10:52)
Yeah, sure. So we've built a really, really, really robust media listening algorithm that listens to hundreds of millions of signals a day, really. We're pulling in everything. We've built this for the past two years, and it was quite a long journey to build this. ⁓ But basically, we're able to parse out signals and see who's talking about what. And even outside of the mainstream news, because there's lots of great news that doesn't get covered, we're able to see what should be news.
And we take those signals and then we have an amazing tool that we've built internally that makes our journalist team really fast. And we're able to take that, have our journalists put that information into our tool. And then they're, you know, much faster than they ever, ever could have ⁓ been at their previous publications. So it's kind of a mix of, of this media listening, like secret sauce that we have. then, and the, tool that we've built that allows us to just be incredibly fast to run all of these newsrooms and do all of this content at extreme scale.
⁓ This is never possible before. Like this is also why these media companies are dying because their overhead is tremendous. It's really hard for them to publish great journalistic content and we can do that at a fraction of the cost at extreme scale.
Speaker 2 (12:02)
Makes sense, makes sense. Let's talk about creativity, for example. I mean, I think that we can both agree that B2B is very boring. Right. And ⁓ as we said earlier, everyone is completely the same. Every website is the same. No websites are sending out content is the same. The style of voice, videos, content, whatever, everything is the same. And you are someone basically who is on a really, really high
high tier list when it comes to like the creativity in B2B and all the campaigns that you did for ClickUp before and so on. So what's your approach? How do you get creative ideas? How do you motivate your team to get creative ideas about specific things as well?
Melissa Rosenthal (12:48)
Yeah, that's a great question. mean, I think like the reality of where ideas go to die is ideas go to die in the center of a conversation that includes every single person at the company, because everyone is going to try to put their opinion, their perspective, every feature that the product does, every value add. And it's not about that. Like creative marketing, especially at like top of funnel and like brand level is about getting people to pay attention. And if you're doing anything other than that, then you're doing it wrong.
So my approach to creativity is how do we create the intersection of like what water cooler conversation is for that industry. And the North Star is can we make that company or like I click it was can we make this company seem like the water cooler of productivity of work talk? Like can we become like the work company? ⁓ And you know, I think that that like, I don't know if that that approach applies to every single company, right? Like I don't want to say that that's like a copy and paste.
um, like strategy, but what we did there was it was, Hey, our billboard strategy is we want people to go to the website. That is it. It's a billboard strategy. Like if they, if they are, if their interest is peaked enough and we've put it in the right places, so we know we're getting the right ICPs going to the site, that's, that's job done. Right. Like the site has to deliver on the rest. Um, with our creative and our ad campaigns, it was always like, how do we
How do we find what these people are talking about in Reddit? Like how do we create a very smart conversational approach to the pain points and the water cooler moments that we know are happening at work? And why don't we create something where people see themselves in our creative? And that was it. It's like identification of yourself. Like you want to be able to see yourself and creative like you do. Like that's what sells people.
⁓ so that was my approach. was, want people to see themselves in the ads. I want them to feel and resonate emotionally with what we're doing and connect with it. Connection is the deepest form of, of, of emotional resonance you can have. So why not optimize for that at every point? And, know, obviously there's creative where it's like, you need to understand what the product does and the value. I mean, I think like.
Today, there's enough information out there that people aren't like, I think the website is going to go away. Like no one needs a website anymore. People go to the website for pricing and you're to be able to find all of that in LLMs. Like everything that you need to find out about a company will be found information sent to you, information that comes across your desk and stuff that you search in LLMs. So it's just like rethinking everything. Like I don't even like, I just don't think websites even need to exist anymore.
Speaker 2 (15:34)
So that's very interesting thing that you said. Considering that how the market looks right now is totally different than how it looked like two years ago.
Melissa Rosenthal (15:44)
Yeah, yeah, for sure. Which is crazy. It's two years. Like we had an age of stagnation for a really long time where nothing happened and now the market has changed like drastically in two years.
Speaker 2 (15:56)
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Exactly. So ⁓ I used to own a content agency back in the day, right? And we worked with many SaaS companies, that agency got acquired and I just wanted a little break, right? I took like a year off, did some silly things with like a restaurant, something like, you know, just to rest a bit for the online world. When I came back, when I came back, I literally, it was a nightmare.
Probably two or three months, you know, to adjust, to adjust myself, like many things that we used to do for the clients. It just doesn't make sense to do them anymore. Yeah. Yeah. So considering that we had this massive shift right now and ⁓ considering that changes are also going to, you know, happen faster and faster right now. Where do you see the B2B marketing in the next, let's say two years, so not too far.
far away, but let's say in the next two years.
Melissa Rosenthal (16:56)
Yeah, I don't know fully. mean, to be honest, like if I came out of the gate and I said I know where exactly where everything is headed, I would be lying because everything is changing on a monthly basis. I mean, the tech that we're using is getting so smart. It's in weeks, like the updates that we're getting in weeks are like, is scary. So the answer is I don't know. I think marketing right now is in shambles. People are having like identity crisis like within their own roles and their own jobs.
Like things are not good. I'll be like very honest. talk to marketers all day long. The role of the CMO. I don't know if it will exist. I think a lot of things will collapse under like consolidation of roles within companies. think B2B marketing will become a function of like things that are logical and proven, right? Like which are yes, we need to be places where our ICPs are physically. We need to build relationships. We need to create content where we are.
talking to the ICP already, rather than creating content that we hope will surface in Google. I think that's the thing of the past. No one can rely on SEO and to build a content program in which you're spending thousands of dollars on a crapshoot at this point makes zero sense. And I think optimization through LLMs, which who knows what that looks like because you really can't truly optimize for that. ⁓
Like, I think that's the things we will revert back to. It's the tried and true things that like are fundamentally built on connecting with people, understanding how they view the market, what they actually need and servicing them with the things they need. Like, yeah, case studies and materials and.
technical content, like really heavily technical content, depending upon your product is important. think that will go away. Interactivity within that technical content to get people engaged. It's providing education. It's making connections with people. It's having a procured and thoughtful voice in the space. And it's building something that allows you to gain organic growth and grow over time in which you're not dependent on spending more.
That's where I think it's headed. think, and I think a lot of roles will sort of become obsolete. Like I don't, I don't know if like product marketing is going to be a role. Like I just, I think a lot of these roles that we've had historically are going to go away and maybe they merge into other roles. Maybe they become a hybrid of themselves, but everything is way too siloed. Marketing and sales teams are way too disconnected. Like it, it's crazy. I, I don't think I had a clear understanding of how disconnected like they are and
They need to be brought together. Like you're doing the same function. Like the fact that they don't know how to work together is not a good sign. So I just see like huge disruption within models, huge disruption within the ⁓ org structure and titles and roles and a lot of disruption within what actually works. Because like when I ask people I'm like, what's working for you today? And they don't have a clear answer. They're like, well, we're doing this and we're trying this and we're trying this. And it's like, okay.
But like, there's not, no one is saying this is a great channel because everyone's exhausted that channel and it's saturated and commoditized. I, the short answer is I think we're gonna see a lot of change and a lot of experimentation and people are gonna be desperate to try new things because everything old is not working.
Speaker 2 (20:20)
Yeah. One very quick paradox, right? So my belief is that of course, like with AI and everything, ⁓ our own jobs, the day-to-day tasks that we are doing are evolving, right? So just last weekend, I had a very, very quick, like over the weekend team building with my team. And ⁓ I told them, look, I strongly believe that content writers as a content writers, they should not exist anymore because what's the point, right? AI is doing a...
pretty great job with that, right? He can even write like the better article than I. If prompted with the right resources and insights, know, and specific, you know, specific knowledge, right? If I just go to AI and tell, write me an article on XYZ, it's going to be bullshit, right? What happens is that this gives us now more time to be more creative, to be more original, to do more research, right? And yet many people still use AI the wrong way.
They use it to increase the output instead to increase the quality of the output. So I think one thing is that from my perspective, that's going to happen is that we as a marketeers people will need to start wearing more hats that are complimentary to each other. So for example, content writers right now,
instead of just being writers, now they're taking more strategic role, right? In the overall content strategy, the, know, vision behind every content piece that needs to be written, right? And everything else. So tell me, you mentioned sales and marketing team, right? And ⁓ if I remember correctly, I think I saw somewhere that you believe that sales outbound is broken right now. So how, ⁓ if I read it correctly, right?
How would you fix sales album? If you can.
Melissa Rosenthal (22:19)
mean, the problem with sales outbound is that it used to be like right message, right place, right time. And like, that's why it worked, right? You were hitting people where they were with the right message at the right time or around the right time. And it wasn't completely saturated. The problem with outbound right now is that, or forever, is that you're reliant on a channel that is not yours. Like I made a post about this ⁓ a couple months ago and like the collapse of digital media,
Outbound is the same thing. It's basically you're resting on the rails of a, of a distribution system that you don't own that's changing every day. That's now oversaturated and is trying to get back to a pure clean inbox. And it's going to filter out all of the garbage that's being sent. Regularly. And now with AI we're oversaturating that channel even more. So something that was already on its way out is going to die faster. Like it's not, this is like a
This has happened already. think no one just thinks about like email is like not owned, but it's very not owned. And now you're trying to even saturate, saturate even more something that was already being stretched really thin. So yeah, I don't believe in the future of that type of outbound, but types, other types of outbound are again, like events and strategic outreach to people at events is a form of outbound. Like they are going to the right place.
at the right time and they're obviously looking for something. And I think for you to show up and be there and have a message out to them. But like we can't think about outbound in the same definition that we've thought about it for four years. It's having a conversation with that person and maybe not trying to sell them. It's staying top of mind. It's talking to them about what matters to them in market. It's not, Hey, do a demo. Like it's just not like, I don't believe that as the future at all. And I think
anyone who's saying that that still works is lying, or they're gonna see a change in the next six months year where it doesn't work at all. So I know people like have the whole like, I hate that outbound, I think outbound is dead, it's dead, it's dying, it's dead, it'll be dead forever. I think if you rethink outbound and just think about, go back to the fundamentals of like what it is, it's building relationships with people. And we have to go back to thinking that way rather than trying to spam them to buy our product because...
The market has shrunk too. And I think that's a big problem because when people were trying to ramp up outbound, when they started hiring hundreds of sales reps and BDRs and SDRs, they were also playing into a market that basically had infinite money. So a lot of the outbound they were doing was basically to each other. When you think about all the companies that were venture funded that had unlimited funds to spend on software, it was just like paper trading. So I think like today, you just have to think about the fact that like all of that was not real.
Like that was never real. You were just artificially on a channel that was inflated by, by propped up by, you know, an insane amount of VC money. ⁓ today, like that doesn't exist. So I think we have to go back to relationships. You have to go back to like why someone would want to connect with you at all. Or is it at an event because it's the right place, right time? Did they speak on a panel? Did they do something like, is, what is the reason that you're doing outreach to them? And it has to be very strategic and it's not something that like, you know, ⁓
an AI add-on can just pump up and be like, I saw that they did this. Like that's helpful, but it's not the answer. So I don't know. think we need to rethink it completely.
Speaker 2 (25:49)
Yeah, and it's definitely not something that can be done on scale in the way how we understand or how...
Melissa Rosenthal (25:55)
That is, that's over. think that is completely over. We should just, you know.
Speaker 2 (25:59)
What about using other forms of signals and listening that you can do online about specific prospects and reaching out based on that?
Melissa Rosenthal (26:10)
I mean, we're doing that all. just triangulating in a different way, because I think like the reality is people are still saturated. And I think the, one of the important things is like providing value to that person upfront. And that's what we try to optimize for. Like how do we provide value to someone that could potentially become your customer in a couple months, a month, year ⁓ upfront and build a relationship with that person. So yeah, I mean, I think some of that can be useful and I don't want to say that it doesn't work because it probably does.
Just don't think it works like at scale. I think there needs to be more and there needs to be a better reason to connect because people are tired and their inbox is filled with garbage.
Speaker 2 (26:48)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally agree. Let's talk about brand building for a moment. What is a brand for you? How to start building a brand and how do you eventually scale that entire initiative?
Melissa Rosenthal (27:02)
I mean, it depends because I think brand is definitely different things at different stages of a company's life and journey. would say like to start a brand is like just every touch point that person has. It's referrals, it's, you know, customer recommendations, it's good experiences with your product. It's anything that touches your ecosystem of what that company is and doesn't mean flashy websites or...
insane events or swag. Like it doesn't mean any of that. It just means like, did this person have a good experience with you? And I think like, when I think about brand, it would brand was always that it like, it always was. But again, we were living in a time where you could get out of the gate with a series a company and spend a hundred billion dollars on marketing. I'm like, that doesn't exist anymore. So I think it's all become a bit scale more scaled back where
The focus is on kind of the fundamentals of like what it is to actually build a good brand to start. And then you can amplify those things as you get bigger. Right. So I'd say like, you you optimize for just great customer experiences, great referrals, great touch points, great experiences across the board, great and interesting content that I mentioned, like all of those things like should just provide an extra tier of trust and credibility within a touch point.
And when you're optimizing for that, you're building brand. then as you grow, you can optimize for that further and take those messages that really work and the things that are working and add fuel to the fire. And whether it's by billboards or create really unique commercials or ads that, that hopefully like, I don't know if they're performance based, they might just be there to make noise, but they can make noise and resonate in the right way. And you can scale everything that has worked. ⁓ but you've tested it and you've built a foundation that, that
is your brand already and you know what your brand is. I think that's what the key is. ⁓ So I think it's like different than like I came into a series a company that was raising a hundred billion dollars and wanted to go big on brand because we were up against a $50 billion market cap company is our biggest competitor. Very different approach. Like that, that, that also like these is an approach. Like I don't want to say that it isn't. And I think there are still some companies.
that are competing in like hyper competitive spaces that are raising a ton of money and they're going to go out the door and they're I mean they probably already have a customer base and have significant ARR at this point to be raising that but they're going to go out the door and build amazing brands based on what they already have but I think they're going to use those foundations as really the kind of the points that allow them to get bigger ⁓ but we're just not going to see brand building in the same way that we've ever that we used to see it because it's expensive and ⁓ and everything is now like
You know, ROI focused every every single thing, but I do think we'll shift away from that a bit too, because I don't think. That will ever work. You can't map every single touch point back to of branch back to a transaction or first or last touch attribution. So I think I think there'll be an awakening where companies that are building great brands are the ones that are standing out and getting noticed and driving revenue. Even if you can't map every single touch point, you'll see the correlation.
And other companies will be like, well, they're growing and they have a great brand. And then it's just the same thing over and over. It's like, all right, well, then you see other people in the space doing it you realize that you have to do it too. ⁓ Everything is also very competitive these days, like super saturated product. Parity is at an all time, like high. mean, and you can build anything you want in six months. So ⁓ like, how do you, how do you stand out? I mean, I do think the answer is brand for sure. I just think it's a different approaches and different strategies at different stages.
Speaker 2 (32:45)
Yeah. Tell me, ⁓ there's also one paradox that just crossed my mind. And I talk about that like recently. ⁓ When you go to, you know, let's say B2C marketing team, right? You have creatives, you know, you have experimentations, know, ⁓ really heavy execution, testing, you know, it's totally different than what you can see in the B2B marketing team. Right. So how can...
Melissa Rosenthal (33:11)
For sure.
Speaker 2 (33:14)
B2B companies and marketing departments, CMLs, make that shift because we both agree that that's something that needs to happen sooner than later.
Melissa Rosenthal (33:24)
Well, I don't think they all can and I don't know if they all should. I'll say that. Like I think there are certain things that they can approach it in that way where it is a little bit more consumer friendly in the way that the messaging is and the way that they're speaking to that target. Like these are still people at the end of the day. I'll never like back down from my stance that like, I don't care if you're marketing to a CFO.
or a CMO or who you are trying to target, like it's a person, and you can still get them the most relevant information and the value of the product mixed with something that stands out and grabs their attention. attention is just such a valuable like commodity at this point and like to be able to harness that is really important. So I'll never back down from my view on that. I think that's like the B2C, the most B2C way of thinking. But.
like the only B2B companies that should truly adopt a B2C model are the ones that are effectively B2C where their TAM is everyone. Like there's no way that a company that has a TAM of like, which again, most companies don't have a TAM of everyone, but they kind of do. Because you're still trying to reach like, reaching your decision maker is also now like a very much like a chain of influence around the company. So.
I do actually really, I do believe it. I just don't know if there's ever going to be budget to be able to view it that way. But I think like the fact that like your core ICP, like the sniper shot of that person reaching out to that person, that being the right time and you hitting that person exactly is not, it's not realistic. But if you're creating a chain of influence around them and means every, every person within their orbit is seeing your ads, your content, your X, Y, and Z that's a great strategy.
So I like, I do believe in that as the future and sort of the way that you could think about it, right? Like true B2C is like, how do you create that chain of influence? It's, like, why did, why do you think this company spent so much money? Because yeah, if everyone around you is talking about poppy soda and you're seeing poppy soda everywhere and you're watching your favorite influencers drink poppy soda, you're going to try a poppy soda. Like that's the way, like, will you like it maybe, but you're going to certainly try it. And I think that that's the way we should approach marketing within B2B. So it's just more of like,
a different framework of thinking versus like your ICP might be your ICP, but there's a lot of people around your ICP that have a chain of influence into them. And I think we should start thinking about that as the expansion of what the ICP actually looks like. That being said, there's definitely more of a broader marketing view that needs to change if that's the way that you want to approach it. So what I said about B2C in the past, like, I don't know if every company would be able to do that. And I don't think they should if their TAM isn't everyone.
But I do think the framework and the mindset of who they're actually targeting and how they target that person conversationally and through strategy is different than it ever should ever be. Like I think it's changing and evolving and I think you can have more touch points that affect that ICP, especially if that ICP is a high level decision maker at a Fortune 500 company.
Speaker 2 (36:23)
Makes sense, makes sense. So let's go back to the point where companies should actually be the first new source in their industry. What are some companies that are right now doing the best job with that? I guess it's probably going to be your clients and that's okay. If I'm about to focus more on the news for myself or for my clients, who should I look up to?
Melissa Rosenthal (36:49)
mean, like, I think we're doing a pretty good job for our customers. Yeah, like, I mean, there other companies doing it. Like, Card is doing a really great job with it. Rippling is starting to do a really great job with it. I think it's just like, there just needs to be the fundamental understanding of what that actually means, which is investing resources and time into actually building something that creates value over time. ⁓
And yeah, I mean, there's a lot of companies that are starting to do it. Like the Rippling example is amazing. I share that with every potential customer that we have. Rippling, they had a big like espionage case and it was the one with Deal and it was awesome. It was a great story. It was like a spy novel and they wrote it in third person, like as if they were tech punch covering the article and it outranked every other publication. Like it was number one and it was really well written and it was written in third person and it was awesome. I loved it.
And then a couple months later, I think this is like a month ago and now they raised like $450 million and they wrote it as like a third person article, like TechCrunch would write their like covering, know, ruffling spawning. ⁓ that's it. That is it. And I think doing that at extreme scale, not only the things that are, that are about you though, covering the things and the topics in the news that really matters to your ICPs, the data, getting people talking about reports that matter. Like that's the.
That's sort of the trifecta. So it is like thinking about your news as news, but also thinking about the news that matters to your customers every day. Like, you know, the tariffs, like if I was a B2C company or, you know, building a news function at a B2C company, we'd be talking about the tariffs. Like that affects probably every single one of your customers. So there's just a ton of ways to go about it. But yeah, there's a bunch of companies that are not working with us that are doing great jobs.
they're investing a ton of money into their newsrooms. We do it just like at a fraction of the scale and just way higher volume.
Speaker 2 (38:46)
Yeah. So basically it's not about the news as we know it, it's more about the real time insights, you know, about the things that are happening right now in the industry that can potentially influence the way how the target audience.
Melissa Rosenthal (39:02)
Yeah. I mean, there's news happening in every single niche industry. there aren't, like, as I mentioned before, like, because media companies existed formally as a conduit to sell advertising and that model no longer makes sense or works, those companies don't exist anymore. They're dying. They're being sold to private equity and they're like literally dying. So there's just a blue sky opportunity for companies themselves to come in and be like, well, we don't have to sell advertising here. We just have to reach our core.
consumers in our core ICPs through the content that we're creating. Let's do that model. So the model just, the power of the model is just shifting hands into the actually the right hands, I believe. So yeah, it's just the opportunity, window of opportunity is just wide open now.
Speaker 2 (39:45)
Yep, makes sense, makes sense. ⁓ What do you say when we are at this topic right now? I always love people with very, very bold visions and the plans, right? So what is the wildest dream for Outlawr in the next five years?
Melissa Rosenthal (40:01)
I mean, that's a great question. We are coming across, I would say insights that are pretty amazing, like unmatched sales insights, Intel, really just by talking to people. That is it. It's so simple. Talk to people. They tell you amazing, wonderful things about what's going on in their industry. These are not proprietary things that they can't talk about. They're just talking. And I think we've lost sight as marketers in the, you know, my former marketing.
where all we want to do is talk about us and we don't want to listen. So, I mean, what we're creating, I think is the largest, you know, effectively database of, of intelligence and insights from ICPs across every single industry you can imagine. So our wildest imagination is how do we utilize that in the most valuable way possible for both our customers and then our potential future customers into new products, new, new ways of thinking.
new channels. ⁓ So I just every day there feels like we're on uncovering stones and gems that are just like, wow, this is the future. How we bring that to market is TBD. We wanted to do it right the right way. But I think there's just massive, massive, massive opportunity in what is actual like real value, tangible value. So we will see. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (43:27)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. Okay, so tell me, ⁓ what would you say is the one book that had the most influence on you, either privately or professionally on the way how you think the way how you
Melissa Rosenthal (43:41)
⁓ grit by Angela Duckworth for sure.
Speaker 2 (43:44)
Love it, love it. And the last question that I have for you, this is something that I really ⁓ love asking people. How, according to you, how do you win the game of life? What is that winning for you and how do you win?
Melissa Rosenthal (44:03)
Okay, that's a great question. That's a really good question. ⁓ Well, it's definitely different for different people, right? For me, it's constantly being on and intertwined with whatever disruption means at that period of time. that is my, like, I will die, like, know, like, within every ounce of myself if I am not involved in that. ⁓ I...
I've never been able to like say stagnant within industries that I don't believe in. I move very fast. My mind is very much caught up in like what's next, what's next. ⁓ And I need to be on the precipice of that. So I think like, you know, there's obviously like financial goals and things you want in life, of course, but I'm winning in life when I'm on the heels of whatever is next and when I'm able to disrupt and when I can wake up every morning and feel like I'm.
working to disrupt an industry and ⁓ my belief systems are aligned with where I think the future is headed. Like I have to be doing that. Like, yeah, that's very important. So that's how I win at life.
Speaker 2 (47:06)
That's great. That's great. Melissa, thank you very much for being the part of the show. I really had a great time with you.
Melissa Rosenthal (47:13)
Yeah, me too. This is really fun. Thanks for all the great questions. Appreciate it.